Nelly Korda is Re-Writing the Record Books in 2024

History. That’s what we’re collectively watching every time that Nelly Korda steps on a golf course these days. Her next opportunity to create more historic moments comes this week at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, which she won in 2021 at Atlanta Athletic Club. It was her first major triumph.

Korda, 25, added her second major victory earlier this year at the Chevron Championship, which was her fifth consecutive victory at the time. She tied for seventh place in her next start to end the streak, then won the Mizuho Americas Open last month to capture her sixth LPGA victory this season. She has missed consecutive cuts in her last two events, but it has not kept her from being the prohibitive favorite this week at Sahalee Country Club.

Putting Korda’s season into perspective is difficult, simply because there are so many angles to approach.

First, we’ll start with the straight statistics.

The World No. 1 is obviously first on the money list, first in scoring average and first in the LPGA’s Race to the CME Globe standings. Those are a given. She ranks second this year in both greens hit in regulation and putts per green in regulation, two statistics that have helped propel her to all those victories. At 265.83 yards, Korda is 26th in driving distance and 68th in driving accuracy, hitting 72.75 percent of her fairways, but again, she’s hitting so many greens and putting so well that missed fairways have not remotely been an issue.

Korda has earned $2,943,708 to top the season money list in only 10 events, becoming the quickest player ever to reach $2 million in earnings. That number is already more than anyone has ever won in a full season on the LPGA, save for the last three years, when Jin Young Ko ($3.5 million in 2021), Lydia Ko ($4.36 million in 2022) and Lilia Vu ($3.5 million last year) all topped that mark. But they hit their markers in 19, 22 and 19 events respectively. Lorena Ochoa won seven times in 2008, including a major championship, and earned $2.76 million.

In a historical context, Korda stands among the giants in the history of the women’s game. She is the first player since Inbee Park in 2013 to win six times in a season. Since 1980, only seven players have earned six or more wins in a single season, with both Ochoa and Annika Sorenstam achieving the feat twice. (Mickey Wright won 13 times in 1963, Wright and Sorenstam have each won 11 times in a season and four players have won 10 times, but Sorenstam is the only player who has done that after 1968.)

Korda is the first American to win at least six times in a season since Beth Daniel in 1990. She won seven times that year, including the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, which was called the LPGA Championship at the time.

There’s plenty more. Korda tied Sorenstam as the fastest player to win six times in an LPGA season since 1980. The 72-time LPGA winner won her sixth title of 2005 in her eighth start that year, just like Korda did this year.

The record that Korda tied and was trying to surpass was for most consecutive victories. After recording her fifth straight, she joined Sorenstam (2004-2005) and Nancy Lopez (1978) as the only three women to win five in a row. No player has ever won six straight.

The KPMG Women’s PGA Championship is Korda’s next immediate hurdle. It’s the third women’s major of the season, with still two remaining. She’s already achieved so much this year, but still has so much more left to play for, including a return trip to the Olympics in Paris, where she will defend her gold medal from 2021 in Tokyo.

But first things first.

“I approach every tournament the same and differently,” Korda said at Sahalee. “I’m just trying to make a game plan for this week, and every week is just a refresh.

“I feel like pressure is a privilege and that’s something that you’re the only one that can kind of control that. You can listen to the outside voices but at the end of the day, when you have pressure you can take it in a positive way that you are doing good and playing well.